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Sega
Sega Games Co, Ltd. '''is a Japanese multinational video game developer and publisher headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are respectively headquartered in Irvine, California, and London. Sega's arcade division, once part of Sega Corporation, has existed as '''Sega Interactive Co., Ltd. since 2015. Both companies are subsidiaries of Sega Holdings Co., Ltd., which is in turn a part of Sega Sammy Holdings. From 1983 until 2001, Sega also developed and sold video game consoles. Sega was founded by Martin Bromley and Richard Stewart as Nihon Goraku Bussan on June 3, 1960. The company became known as Sega Enterprises, Ltd. after acquiring Rosen Enterprises, an importer of coin-operated games. Sega developed its first coin-operated game with Periscope in the late 1960s. In an effort to become a publicly traded company, Sega was sold to Gulf and Western Industries in 1969. Following a downturn in the arcade business in the early 1980s, Sega began to develop video game consoles, starting with the SG-1000 and Master System, but struggled against competitors such as the Nintendo Entertainment System. In 1984, Sega executives David Rosen and Hayao Nakayama led a management buyout of the company with backing from CSK Corporation. Sega released its next console, the Sega Genesis (known as the Mega Drive outside North America), in 1988. Although it was a distant third in Japan, the Genesis found major success after the release of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991 and briefly outsold its main competitor, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, in the U.S. However, later in the decade, Sega suffered commercial failures such as the 32X, Sega Saturn, and Dreamcastconsoles. In 2001, Sega stopped manufacturing consoles to become a third-party developer and publisher, and was acquired by Sammy Corporation in 2004. In the years since the acquisition, Sega has been more profitable. Sega Holdings Co. Ltd. was established in 2015, with Sega Corporation being renamed Sega Games Co., Ltd. and its arcade, entertainment, and toy divisions separated into other companies. Sega produces multi-million-selling game franchises including Sonic the Hedgehog, Total War, and Yakuza, and is the world's most prolific arcade game producer. It also operates amusement arcades and produces other entertainment products, including Sega Toys. As a company, Sega is retrospectively remembered for its time supporting its own video game consoles, its creativity, and its innovations. In more recent years, it has been criticized for misguided business decisions and lack of creativity. History Origins and arcade sucess (1940-1982) In 1940, American businessmen Martin Bromley, Irving Bromberg, and James Humpert formed Standard Games in Honolulu, Hawaii. Their aim was to provide coin-operated amusement machines, including slot machines, to military bases as the increase in personnel with the onset of World War II would create demand for entertainment. After the war, the founders sold Standard Games and established Service Games, named for the military focus. After the United States government outlawed slot machines in its territories in 1951, Bromley sent employees Richard Stewart and Ray LeMaire to Tokyo to establish Service Games of Japan to provide coin-operated slot machines to U.S. bases in Japan. A year later, all five men established Service Games Panama to control the various entities of Service Games worldwide. The company expanded over the next seven years to include distribution in South Korea, the Philippines, and South Vietnam. The name Sega, an abbreviation of Service Games, was first used in 1954 on a slot machine, the Diamond Star. Due to notoriety received from investigations into criminal business practices, Service Games of Japan was dissolved on May 31, 1960. Bromley established two companies to take over its business activities, Nihon Goraku Bussan and Nihon Kikai Seizō. The two new companies purchased all of Service Games of Japan's assets. Kikai Seizō, doing business as Sega, Inc., focused on manufacturing slot machines. Goraku Bussan, doing business under Stewart as Utamatic, Inc., served as a distributor and operator of coin-operated machines, particularly jukeboxes. The companies merged in 1964, retaining the Nihon Goraku Bussan name. David Rosen, an American officer in the United States Air Force stationed in Japan, launched a photo booth business in Tokyo in 1954. This company became Rosen Enterprises, and in 1957 began importing coin-operated games into Japan. In 1965, Nihon Goraku Bussan acquired Rosen Enterprises to form Sega Enterprises, Ltd. Rosen was installed as the CEO and managing director, while Stewart was named president and LeMaire was the director of planning. Shortly afterward, Sega stopped leasing to military bases and moved its focus from slot machines to coin-operated amusement machines. Its imports included Rock-Ola jukeboxes, pinball games by Williams, and gun games by Midway Manufacturing. Because Sega imported second-hand machines that required frequent maintenance, it began constructing replacement guns and flippers for its imported games. This began the company's transition from importer to manufacturer. According to former Sega director Akira Nagai, this led to the company developing their own games. The first electromechanical game Sega manufactured was the submarine simulator Periscope,released worldwide in the late 1960s. It featured light and sound effects considered innovative, and was successful in Japan. It was exported to malls and department stores in Europe and the United States, and helped standardize the 25-cent-per-play cost for arcade games in the U.S. Sega was surprised by the success, and for the next two years the company produced and exported between eight and ten games per year. Despite this, rampant piracy in the industry would lead to Sega stepping away from exporting its games around 1970. In 1969, Sega was sold to American conglomerate Gulf and Western Industries, although Rosen remained CEO. In 1974, Gulf and Western made Sega Enterprises, Ltd. a subsidiary of an American company renamed Sega Enterprises, Inc. Sega released Pong-Tron, its first video-based game, in 1973.